1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for digging and harvesting seed pods from plant roots, in particular, a device for digging and harvesting peanuts, where after the peanut plants are removed from the ground, the peanuts are removed from the peanut plant root system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Unlike many crops, peanuts have a very short harvest window in which the peanuts may be harvested while obtaining close to the maximum yield. If the peanuts are harvested too early, a considerable amount of the crop will be immature and unusable. If the peanuts are harvested too late, many of the peanuts will have rotted, and the effective yield will be decreased. While the exact harvest window varies by the type of peanut, a typical harvest time for peanuts is 145 days, with the harvest window being plus or minus four days. This narrow window requires that farmers harvest the peanuts as rapidly as possible.
The conventional method of harvesting the peanuts from the peanut plants is performed manually. Farmers manually dig up the peanut plant, exposing the plant root system and peanuts. The soil is shaken from the root system exposing the peanuts, then the peanuts are removed and collected. The manual harvesting of peanuts takes many man hours of labor, being inefficient and costly.
In an effort to decrease costs and increase efficiency, mechanical harvesters have been invented which dig up the peanut plants, exposing the plant roots system and peanuts. The peanut plants are first progressively dug from the ground exposing the plant root system and peanuts. The plants are then passed along a conveyer, where the soil is shaken from the plant root system. At the end of the conveyer, the plants are deposited on the ground in the inverted position, with the peanut being on top of the plant. Examples of such plant invertors are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,494 to Pickett, et al., for a Crop inverter and method for using same, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,486 to Hobbs, for a Multiple row harvester for peanut crops. After inversion, the peanuts are subsequently manually picked from the roots. As with manual harvesting, this can be time consuming, and have high labor costs.
Subsequently, there have been attempts to design a machine which both digs up the peanut plants and removes the peanuts from the plant root system. Examples of such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,703 to Wang, for a Peanuts harvester and harvesting method, where the picking head uses rakes to strip the peanuts from the plant root system; U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,388 to Chen, for a Device to remove peanuts from the root thereof, where the picking head twists the peanuts until they are removed from the plant root; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,687,064 to Johnson, for Green peanut harvester, where the picking head removes the peanuts from the plant root system by using a saw-toothed picking comb. In addition to using a picking head, some have attempted to use combines to harvest peanuts, including U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,114 to Hobbs, for a Peanut Combine, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,382 to Brantley, et al., for a Self-propelled peanut combine. The above-mentioned mechanical peanut harvesters have several disadvantages, including the tangling of the mechanical systems with the peanut plant""s roots and the damaging of the harvested peanuts, be it the bruising or breaking of the peanut pods. Such problems can decrease the efficiency of the mechanical harvester and decrease the quality and quantity of the yield. Currently, there still remains a need for a simple, efficient and cost effective device for harvesting peanuts.
All patents, patent applications and publications referred to or cited herein, or from which a claim for benefit of priority has been made, including: U.S. Pat. No. 3,989,111 to Hobbs, U.S. Pat. No. 4,230,188 to Paulk, U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,744 to Thompson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,486 to Hobbs, U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,703 to Wang, U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,388 to Chen, U.S. Pat. No. 4,687,064 to Johnson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,114 to Hobbs, U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,562 to Gresham, U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,494 to Pickett, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,382 to Brantley, et al. are incorporated by reference in their entirety to the extent they are not inconsistent with the explicit teachings of this specification.
The present invention solves the problems in the art by providing a harvesting head which includes three components for performing the requisite function, namely a shaft, a pair of circular hubs and at least one set of tines. The hubs are securely mounted onto the shaft in a parallel relationship. A set of tines is securely mounted onto the outer edges of a first hub, so that tines are mounted as mirror images of one another, forming a xe2x80x9cVxe2x80x9d shaped channel section extending into an elongated harvesting section with two parallel members forming an xe2x80x9cLxe2x80x9d shape. The harvesting section is spring loaded in compression and can automatically adjust for different size root systems.
When in use, the harvesting head is preferably mounted into any suitable device which rotates the harvesting head. As the harvesting head is rotated, the peanut plant""s root system enters the xe2x80x9cVxe2x80x9d channel section of a set of tines and is funneled toward the elongated harvesting section. As the harvesting head rotates, the plant""s roots then pass through the harvesting section and the peanuts are pulled from the plant""s roots. Alternatively, the harvesting head can be mounted onto a digger-shaker or a digger-shaker-inverter, which automatically digs up the peanut plants and conveys them to the harvesting head, for harvesting and collection of the peanuts.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a seed pod harvesting head to remove seed pods from a plant""s root system, without damaging the seed pods or tangling the device in the plant""s root system.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a seed pod harvesting device which can be simply and efficiently operated.